Through the power of IMAX, Hubble enables movie-goers to journey through distant galaxies to explore the grandeur and mysteries of our celestial surroundings and to accompany space-walking astronauts as they attempt the most difficult and important tasks...

Set against the wondrous backdrop of the sweeping Nile and the majestic Giza pyramids, this film takes you on an engaging journey through the Land of the Pharaohs. Mysteries of Egypt is showing one time only, on Monday, April 6, at noon, as part of the...

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Show Returns March 14, 2015
The magic is back in San Diego! The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center welcomes back Jason Latimer, the World Champion of Magic and judge on Syfy's Wizard Wars, to the Heikoff Giant Dome Theater for a special...

Film Opens Friday, March 27
Through visually stunning imagery, and in collaboration with leading space experts, Journey To Space showcases the exciting plans NASA and the space community are working on to take humans further into space than ever before...

Dive In to the Newest Giant Screen Adventure!
An extraordinary journey into the mysterious world of one of nature’s most awe-inspiring marine mammals, Humpback Whales takes audiences to Alaska, Hawaii and the Kingdom of Tonga for an immersive look at...

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: Step right up! CIRCUS: Science Under the Big Top is coming to San Diego!
Discover the science behind the spectacle while performing acrobatics in mid-air, learning the art of contortion and performing...

Stand back: We're doing science! Don't Try This at Home is a series of new live shows that explore science that's too messy, too noisy and too hair-raising to do at home! You can experience up to three different shows throughout the day, one show...

In conjunction with the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center welcomes guests to encounter science from an ethical viewpoint. Held on select Wednesdays, from October through June, this ongoing series brings...

Join us on the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. or 8:15 p.m. for a tour of the solar system narrated by the Fleet’s astronomer. Journey through the cosmos with us as we explore a new topic each month.
For optimal viewing, each show is limited to...

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Young Scientists is a hands-on preschool science program offered by the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center. This program provides informal learning experiences that support and enhance exploration, create excitement and facilitate scientific...

Join us for the Tinkerers’ Club on Saturdays in the Tinkering Studio! Dream it, create it, and take it home!
Tinkerers are invited to learn new skills and make awesome take-home projects! Open to tinkerers of all ages (tinkerers 12 and under require an...

Come to the Tinkering Studio on Saturdays to participate in hands-on activities that allow for minds of all ages to be creative and innovative in a variety of topics. From catapults to rockets, families are welcome to join in our Saturday tinkering with...

The first Monday of every month, seniors 65 and better can enjoy the Science Center exhibits, a show in the Heikoff Giant Dome Theater and a lecture on the quietest day of the month for only $8! No coupons or additional discounts are accepted. The Fleet'...

As a thank you to San Diego County residents, the Fleet offers Residents’ Free Tuesday on the first Tuesday of each month.
Free Gallery Admission
Free gallery admission applies to San Diego City and County residents and active-duty military. ID is...

Each month, a different local scientist, engineer or researcher will share their passion for what they do and provide information that will be useful in your classroom. We will focus on connecting the real science happening in San Diego with the Next...

As Asteroids & Comets Fly By Earth, Gain Insight Into These Universal Forces Of Nature!

December 13, 2012

San Diego, CA; December 13 2012—The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center presents Great Balls of Fire! Comets, Asteroids, Meteors, an interactive exhibition making its West Coast debut, in conjunction with the spectacular immersive digital theater experience, Cosmic Collisions. Both will open at the Fleet on January 19, 2013. See full releases below.

San Diego, CA; December 13 2012—The new Great Balls of Fire! Comets, Asteroids, Meteors exhibition will make its West Coast debut at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center on January 19, 2013, and remain through April 28, 2013. The threat of a catastrophic impact from an asteroid or comet is a staple of popular culture. If there was a dinosaur-killer in Earth’s past, will humankind suffer the same fate? What are the chances and how do we assess the risks? For that matter, what are asteroids, comets, and meteorites, and where do they come from?

Great Balls of Fire! Comets, Asteroids, Meteors explores recent discoveries and cutting-edge science relating to these incredible objects. Have you ever wondered about the origins of comets, asteroids and meteors? Or what they can tell us about Earth? Come to the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center to explore these mysterious space rocks through hands-on activities, computer-based interactives, meteorite specimens, scale models and an immersive audio-visual experience called Asteroid Encounter.

The exhibition is divided into four areas: Origins, Asteroids, Comets and Impacts. It includes a variety of interactive, multimedia experiences. Visitors of all ages can take on the role of explorers, participate in real-world amateur astronomy activities and make comparisons between the risks of asteroid or comet impacts and more familiar natural disasters such as tsunamis, tornados, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It also relates the stories of individual scientists whose work has furthered the study of asteroids and comets.

While asteroids and comets are popular subjects for movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact, they are playing their own starring roles in NASA research, and ongoing discoveries are a highlight of the exhibition. In 2001, NASA’s NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft dramatically landed on the asteroid Eros. In 2005, NASA’s Deep Impact probe collided with Tempel 1, exploring beneath the comet’s surface. In 2007, NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft to the Main Asteroid Belt, orbiting the asteroid Vesta. Both NASA and numerous amateur astronomers will be closely monitoring the progress of two possible “Great Comets” in 2013, ISON and PANSTARRS.

Great Balls of Fire! Comets, Asteroids, Meteors includes exhibits, an education program, an outreach program to engage amateur astronomers, a public website (http://www.killerasteroids.org/) and a program website (http://www.greatballsoffireexhibit.org/). Developed by The Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning, with funding from the National Science Foundation and NASA, this new exhibition debuted on May 28, 2012. The exhibition has only traveled to the Science Museum of Virginia, Strategic Air & Space Museum in Nebraska, and Catawba Science Center in North Carolina. The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is delighted to host its West Coast landing!

Great Balls of Fire! Comets, Asteroids, Meteors opens January 19, 2013, and remains through April 28, 2013. The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is located at 1875 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101. Gallery admission, which includes access to all eight exhibit galleries: Adults $11.75; Children/Seniors $9.75. The Fleet’s hours are Monday­­–Thursday 10AM–5PM, Friday & Saturday 10AM–7PM, and Sunday 10AM–6PM. For more information, call (619) 238-1233 or visit our website at www.rhfleet.org/site/exhibition/upcomingexhibits.html.

From subatomic particles to the largest galaxies, cosmic collisions are a universal force of nature. Creative and also destructive, dynamic and dazzling, collisions have resulted in many things we take for granted—the luminescent Moon, the Sun’s warmth and light, our changing seasons and waves washing up on a sandy shore. They’ve ended the age of dinosaurs and changed the very map of the cosmos, reforming galaxies and giving birth to new stars and new worlds. Cosmic Collisions provides an unprecedented and extraordinary view of these events—both catastrophic and constructive—that have shaped our world and our universe.

Cosmic Collisions launches visitors on a thrilling trip through space and time—well beyond the calm face of the night sky—to explore cosmic collisions, hypersonic impacts that drive the dynamic and continuing evolution of the universe. Groundbreaking scientific simulations and visualizations based on cutting-edge research developed by American Museum of Natural History astrophysicists, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and other international colleagues explore the full range of space collisions, past, present and future.

Viewers will witness the violent face of our Sun, imaged by NASA satellites, that produces enormous ejections of material from our star toward our planet. The resulting subatomic clashes, as streams of charged particles from the Sun strike the Earth's magnetic field, produce the eerie glow of the aurora borealis and the aurora australis. Cosmic Collisions also shows the creation of our Moon some five billion years ago when a wandering planetoid struck Earth; the violent meeting of two stars at the edge of the galaxy; and the future collision of our Milky Way galaxy with our closest neighbor, the Andromeda spiral galaxy, a cosmic crash that will produce a new giant elliptical galaxy billions of years from now.

Audiences will feel the ground shake beneath them as they experience a thrilling recreation of the meteorite impact that hastened the end of the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago and cleared the way for mammals like us to thrive. Another dramatic sequence highlights a frightening future scenario where humanity desperately attempts to divert the path of an oncoming "doomsday" asteroid headed on a collision course with Earth.

An engrossing, immersive digital theater experience created by the American Museum of Natural History visualization and production experts with the cooperation of NASA and more than 25 leading scientists from the United States and abroad, Cosmic Collisions launches visitors on an awe-inspiring trip through space and time. The show focuses on the full range of collisions, from catastrophic planetary impacts and the merging of massive galaxies to the continual explosions occurring in the center of the Sun and the incessant barrage of small ionized particles in the solar wind ricocheting off Earth’s magnetic field creating other-worldly conditions called “space weather.” Cosmic Collisions brings together the visionary genius of scientists and the insatiable curiosity of explorers to shed light on the universe’s most complex and mysterious processes. Take the journey into deep space to learn and be enriched by this unique experience!

Cosmic Collisions was developed by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science; GOTO, Inc., Tokyo, Japan; and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, China. Cosmic Collisions was created by the American Museum of Natural History with the major support and partnership of the Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and was made possible with the generous support of CIT.

Cosmic Collisions was written by Stephanie Abrams, award-winning writer and director of documentaries for PBS and USA Networks, and Emmy Award-winner Louise A. Gikow, with music by renowned Brazilian pianist and composer Marcelo Zarvos and award-winning composer Robert Miller.

The Space Science Institute’s National Center for Interactive Learning is a nonprofit organization that carries out world-class research in space and Earth science, together with innovative science education programs that inspire and deepen the public’s understanding of planet Earth and its place in the Universe. The institute's integrated research and education programs span planetary science, space physics, astrophysics, astrobiology, and Earth science.

About the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center

The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center (the Fleet) is home to Southern California's only Giant Dome Theater and 100+ hands-on science exhibits for all ages. Watch immersive giant-screen films in the Eugene Heikoff and Marilyn Jacobs Heikoff Giant Dome Theater, which reopened in 2012 after extensive renovations. Our theater is extraordinary in many ways. It is the world's first IMAX® Dome Theater, the world's first NanoSeam™ Dome screen in an IMAX theater, and it offers two unique experiences in one space: IMAX films and planetarium shows. The Heikoff Giant Dome Theater boasts a 76-foot tilted Dome screen and a 16,000-watt digital surround sound system, providing a stunning visual and audio experience. Experience eight galleries of fun, interactive exhibits, including major traveling exhibitions. A hurricane simulator thrills visitors with gusts of wind up to 80 miles per hour. Enjoy sandwiches, salads and healthy treats in Galileo's Café. Find unique educational toys and games, books, IMAX DVDs and more in the North Star Science Store. Located at 1875 El Prado, two blocks south of the San Diego Zoo on Park Blvd., the Fleet Science Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering the public understanding and enjoyment of science and technology. For information regarding current admission prices, please call (619) 238-1233 or visit our website at www.rhfleet.org.